CUMBERLAND COUNTY COLLEGE

Course: EN 208 Images of Women in Literature

Credits: 3

Prerequisites Students taking English 208 shall have successfully passed English 102.

Description EN 208 is a survey of the images of women in literature from ancient myth and folklore to the present time. Selected fiction, drama, poetry, and nonfiction will be read and discussed, and the images of women analyzed in relation to the traditions, philosophies, and historical background of the period in which they appear.

Learning Outcomes At the completion of this course, students should be able to: • Analyze literary portrayal of women and subsequent reader perceptions. • Identify how those portrayals and perceptions influence contemporary attitudes and conditions. • Apply critical thinking and writing skills developed in EN 102. • Evaluate and think critically about information.

Related General Education Outcomes Global & Cultural Awareness (Diversity) • Students will recognize and explain the possible consequences of prejudicial attitudes and discriminatory actions. Humanistic Perspective • Students will describe commonly used approaches and criteria for analyzing works. • Students will analyze works and applying commonly used approaches and criteria.

Topical Outline To implement achieving the goals in this course, the student will be held responsible for the following work: weekly reading assignments and class discussion of these; a minimum of 3 papers of critical analysis; a longer paper of critical analysis – comparison – as the term paper; quizzes; oral presentation. Tentative Outline: • Unit 1: forlklore, fairy tales, Jungian archetypes, Greek mythology, including Hera, Athena, Aphrodite, Artemis, the Muses, Ceres, Psyche, Pandora; • Unit 2: classical literature, including Sappho, Lysistrata, Medea, Penelope, Circe, Sirens (Odyssey), Dido (Aeneid); • Unit 3: the Bible and related literature: Lilith, Eve, the virgin Mary, Mary Magdelene, Salome, Ruth, Esther, Delilah, Mary and Martha, Bathsheba; critical analysis #1; • Unit 4: Middle Ages: Chaucer – Wife of Bath, Prioress, Troilus & Criseyde; Cult of the Virgin, courtly love tradition; • Unit 5: Shakespeare’s women; • Unit 6: Milton’s Eve (Paradise Lost), compare John collier’s Milton’s Paradise Lost; critical analysis #2; • Unit 7: eighteenth century: Bluestockings, Racine’s Phaedra, Swift’s poems and Gulliver’s Travels, Pope’s Rape of the Lock, Richardson’s Pamela or Virtue Rewarded, Clarissa, Defoe’s Moll Flanders, Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Women, Jane Austen (early 19th century) – Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility; oral presentations beginning; • Unit 8: Romantic literature: Hawthorne’s Scarlet Letter, selected poems by Keats and Byron; critical analysis #3; • Unit 9: Victorian period: John Stuart Mill – The Subjection of Women, George Eliot – The Mill on the Floss and Middlemarch, the Bronte sisters – Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre, Flaubert – Madame Bovary, Ibsen – Doll’s House and Hedda Gabler, Henry James – Daisy Miller; • Unit 10: selections from works by Virginia Woolf, D.H. Lawrence, E.M. Foster, Doris Lessing and additional writers/works as assigned from the text; term paper

Required Texts and Other Materials

Images of Women in Literature by Ferguson, Mary Anne, ed., 5th edition: Cengage.

Student Assessment The evaluation procedure will include the following: short papers of critical analysis – ½ of the final evaluation; longer paper of critical analysis – comparison – term paper – ¼; oral presentation – ¼. Reading of assignments, quizzes, participation in class discussion are very important and will be taken into consideration at the time of final evaluation.

Entrance and Exit Criteria: Entrance Criteria for EN 208 Students who have passed English 102 shall have • acquired the ability to write a logically organized, fully developed critical analysis of a work of literature, a critical explication in which a thesis statement is specifically supported in at least three paragraphs of illustration; • written a minimum of three such critical reaction papers one each for the following genre forms: short story, drama, poetry; • written a 6-9 typed paged research paper on a literary topic, a research project that utilizes the MLA format. Exit Criteria for EN 208: Students shall have • successfully written at least three logically structured, coherently argued critical reaction papers; • successfully written a logically structured, coherently argued long critical analysis – comparison – as term paper; • successfully given an oral presentation according to directions given. Academic Integrity Plagiarism is cheating. Plagiarism is presenting in written work, in public speaking, and in oral reports the ideas or exact words of someone else without proper documentation. Whether the act of plagiarism is deliberate or accidental [ignorance of the proper rules for handling material is no excuse], plagiarism is, indeed, a “criminal” offense. As such, a plagiarized paper or report automatically receives a grade of ZERO and the student may receive a grade of F for the semester at the discretion of the instructor.

Available Resources If you are having difficulty with work in this class, tutoring is available through the Success Center. If you think that you might have a learning disability, contact Project Assist at 856.691.8600, x1282 for information on assistance that can be provided to eligible students.

(List availability of open labs and/or writing center)

Before Withdrawing From This Course If a student experiences adverse circumstances while enrolled in this course and considers withdrawing, s/he should see an advisor (division or advisement center) BEFORE withdrawing from the class. A withdrawal may cause harmful repercussions to completion rate standards and overall GPA which can limit or eliminate future financial aid in addition to causing academic suspension.